Google has issued a surprise revelation that it is upgrading your security protection—if you are using an iPhone. But there’s a catch.
Apple and Google are competitors when it comes to most things but, thankfully, securing data for their respective users is one area where they can share an interest. This has been seen in the past when Apple’s Security Engineering and Architecture team found a serious vulnerability in the Chrome browser, for example.
Now, Google has just confirmed that it is to improve the security of Chrome browser users on the iPhone’s iOS operating system.
Google’s Powerful Upgrade To Password Checkup Functionality
The improvements come by way of an update to Password Checkup, which already has the ability to flag passwords that you are using if they are known to have been compromised and appear in dark web databases used by cybercriminals and hackers. Now Google is adding two more functions to this already essential feature for Chrome iOS fans: an alert for weak passwords and another for reused ones.
Catch reused and weak passwords before threat actors do.
The Password Checkup system will display an alert in Chrome whenever it detects a problem with any passwords you enter, although it can also be used independently. To check your passwords without entering them when logging in somewhere online, go to the Chrome settings and select the Safety Check option.
What Does Google Say About The New Password Checkup Features?
Writing at the Google Chrome products blog, Jasika Bawa, Google’s Chrome product manager, and Jonathan Li, the Google safe browsing product manager, say that Google is “introducing new password protections on Chrome for iOS as another way to help you safely navigate the web.” Google has also announced new safe browsing measures to help “keep up with the increasing pace of hackers,” including “real-time, privacy-preserving URL protection” for anyone using Chrome on desktop or iOS.
According to Google, Android users will have to wait until “later this month.”
Google Predicts 25% More Blocking Of Phishing Attempts
You can read my explanation of how the newly upgraded standard safe browsing protection mode for Chrome users works in real-time on the desktop and iOS. The Google takeaway, however, is that the new functionality will be expected to “block 25% more phishing attempts.”
Helpful iOS Password Guides
Meanwhile, Google has published a very useful online guide for iOS users on how to receive alerts to change their passwords. This walks you through the seven steps from opening the Chrome app on your iPhone to finally being primed to get those security alerts. There’s also a 2024 Forbes Advisor guide that will help you to save passwords using Chrome on all platforms.
All of which assumes you want to switch to Chrome for your iPhone browsing. To be honest, the pre-installed Safari browser option provides, in conjunction with other iOS features, pretty much all the privacy and security features you could want. If you are fully committed to an online Google ecosystem, although that does beg the question of why you use an iPhone, then the newly announced updates should be warmly welcomed.
